Victorious Victorians!

‘Welcome to our Year 5 Victorian Assembly. Over last term, Year 5 have been learning and finding out about the ‘Vile Victorians’; all the nasty and disgusting jobs, the strict schools and the lifestyle that they had. Some of our scenes include Queen Victoria meeting her potential suitors, Victoria’s weight problem, Victorian inventions, a maid sketch, punishment and school who drive their school teacher, Mr Anderson, crazy by repeating the lessons parrot fashion.’ By Sophia Year 5 pupil

Our Year 5 pupils have been studying the Victorian era since September and have covered a huge range of topics. For our assembly we shared all our knowledge about the Victorians with parents/carers and families and produced a performance to be very proud of!

Our first scene focused on the meeting and marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert - the love story of the century. This started the assembly with a smile (and lots of giggles) as the whirlwind romance was played out on stage.

Throughout the rest of the assembly, we portrayed the lives of the rich and famous, such as Florence Nightingale and Alexander Graham Bell and the not so famous; Mary Seacole, street urchins, pick pockets and the daily lives of children in school. The children’s rendition of ‘Consider Yourself’ from Oliver Twist was lively and thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. An adapted version of ‘Food Glorious Food’, was transformed into ‘Work Terrible Work’, and focused on the lives of the poor child factory workers.

The humorous approach to our assembly, helped us to learn so much about life in Victorian Britain and how our lives today have been transformed by some of the Victorian ideals and inventions, some of which are part of our everyday lives even now.

Linking our studies with UNICEF, we have thought about which rights now exist for children in the world, which perhaps did not during the Victorian period. We have gained a better understanding about how important it is for all children in our own country and across the world to have rights. Children have the right to be kept safe and protected from harmful work, the right to a full education, access to healthcare and even the basic right of food to eat and clean water to drink.